


sanguine sancta

by f1shychan



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon - Video Game, Canon Compliant, Childhood Trauma, Existential Angst, Existentialism, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Insanity, Lovecraftian, Novelization, Other, Psychological Horror, Victorian, cosmic horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:41:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22791172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/f1shychan/pseuds/f1shychan
Summary: ' . . . let us partake in communion, and feast upon the old blood . . . '
Relationships: Plain Doll (Bloodborne)/Original Character(s), The Hunter/Plain Doll
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	1. 01 -  innocentia

Every league closer to the city they traveled, Gideon couldn't help but feel his gut wrench and writhe, like an agitated serpent.

Yharnam, the city of blood-healing, grew ever-nearer.

Men and women would toil from great distances to have even the smallest drop of the blood - the covetous holy blood - no matter the weather, no matter the debilitating nature of their ailments, no matter how many pennies they had to scrape off of the floor to pay the price. Hundreds of tales of its extraordinary healing properties had been spun throughout the world. No one knew for certain which were true and which were mere falshoods, but if one was dying, one would do whatever it took to seek it out. 

_Whatever it takes._

Gideon ran the pads of his fingers over his sister's hairline as she slept. Her face was hot and dappled with sweat, milky white. The carriage rattled as the wheels caught against the rocks below, and she shivered violently. Gideon scooped her closer to him to still her, almost scared she would shatter if she got rocked around too hard. She was fragile, now, like one of her porcelain dolls back home. 

He was almost at that point himself - he could feel it. Every joint creaked in protest when he moved, his skin burned and weeped, and his clothes clung to his form, stained a sickly yellow as the sweat seeped out of him in hot, sticky rivulets. It was as though his flesh meant to melt off of his bones. It was a strenuous exercise, to fight against his exhaustion and force himself to stay awake and watch over Adeline.

He couldn't afford to keel over - not when the city was so close now. He just had to make it through the gates and get Adeline into good hands.. Then he could collapse and fall apart as he so wished. He couldn't afford to have any more doubts about traveling so far, either - so many accounts of miraculous healing could not have come from nothing. Their hometown clinic, the clinic the next town over - they'd had no luck. 

First, the seamstress down the road had contracted the illness. Then, her family, and soon enough, it’d swept across the entire town like a starving hound, sinking its teeth into every family and taking whoever it pleased. Just as Gideon had arrived home from his studies, it had reached his own household.

He could still hear his mother’s words ringing in his ears, hoarse and bitter, as if she were standing right before him now, _‘Curse your children, and their children, if you let your sister die’._

Perhaps that was a harsh burden to inflict upon someone, but maybe that _was_ what he deserved if something happened to her. She was so innocent, so bright, a girl of only eight..

.. No, it wasn't harsh at all, he decided, watching Adeline's tiny chest rise and fall. Gideon would damn _himself_ to the lowest crevice of hell before the first curse rolled off of his mother's tongue. 

He tried very hard not to think on it, but it was a lingering presence in his mind.

Yharnam was their last hope. 

_Let the good blood save my sister._ Gideon let his head fall back against the carriage wall to gaze at the low-hanging sun. He’d never been a religious man, but he prayed nonetheless to a god that surely was not listening, and held Adeline a little tighter. 

* * *

The first thing that'd struck Gideon as they passed through the gates of the city was the silence. No bustling markets, no chatter, no lively ambiance to welcome them in - just a _wall_ of dead quiet, save for the hollow knock of the horse's hooves on the cobblestone. Windows were boarded up. Markets lined the sides of the streets, but they lay unattended, their wares scattered in the wind. 

And the _smell_. An acrid scent drifted in on the breeze - metal, and smoke, and _something else,_ something _sharp_ that he could taste in the back of his throat as he inhaled. He'd never been to a city before, never even seen one on the horizon until today, so he hadn't had the faintest idea of what it was like. His family had grown up on modest farmland for as many generations back as they could recount, but he just hadn't expected it to feel so.. Empty. He spotted two small children standing by a doorway further down the street, but they were ushered inside and disappeared as soon as the cart drew near. 

Gideon watched the door as they trod on by, and heard a heavy _chink_ from the other side. 

"Do they not welcome outsiders in Yharnam?" The question cut through the silence like a knife. He didn't blame the sentiment - many townships would not grant entrance to sickly folks at all, and sickness seemed to run rampant everywhere outside their walls. 

" 'Dunno meself." The horseman huffed a tendril of tobacco smoke. "They're a queer bunch, these ones. Scared of the dark, or what have you - some religious rubbish. _Creatures_ in the _night._ "

A disparaging remark, but perhaps under different circumstances it would have unnerved Gideon. He had no belief in the supernatural, but _something_ was keeping the townsfolk off of the streets. Crime, the weather, or perhaps just the encroaching plagues that swept across the land - but he couldn't bring himself to waste energy fretting over it. His head was pounding angrily with fatigue.

By the time they had reached the clinic, Gideon could barely lift his sister. He stumbled and fell out of the cart onto the cold stone below, Adeline tumbling out of his arms. He tried to reach for her, _thought_ he called out for her, but his ears rang, blotting out all other thoughts and sounds. He barely registered anyone hoisting him upwards. The last thing he saw was a swathe of white robes, and Adeline disappearing from sight. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> been playing way too much bloodborne lately and also put way too much thought into my hunter character, so voila, i'm attempting a light novelization. this will only be some key story beats and pivotal moments in the game, not the entire game itself. there's probably not a huge audience for FromSoft games here, but this will be my dumping grounds for it nonetheless. \ ('o') /


	2. 02: sanguis

Gideon didn't really remember being dragged into the clinic - Only vague images, smears of colour and distant sounds. A soft voice, a gruff voice, a sweep of white and a smudge of what he thought was lamplight. His body felt as if it were aflame. Only the eventual cold of his back hitting a table pulled him from his sickly stupor. 

"Adeline.." Was all he could manage to croak out. 

"Hush, hush, your sister is in good hands." 

The image of a woman came into focus as the dizziness gradually subsided. There was a mask concealing the bottom half of her face. She pressed the back of a gloved hand to Gideon's forehead. "I applaud you for managing to come so far. Many do not survive a moment past the stage of illness you have come to." She turned away from him and began rummaging around out of view, and there was a gentle _tink_ of metal-on-metal as she sorted through a nearby tray. "There is hope for you yet. The only thing that can cure your sickness is the blood," the woman turned back to Gideon, "but you knew this, yes? That is why you've come to Yharnam."

"Not for myself.. For my sister. Please. I haven't got the coin to pay for more than one transfusion." Even speaking had become a struggle now, every word seemed to make his head throb all the more.

The woman regarded him for a long, sullen moment, pity plain in her gaze. "I cannot imagine the troubles you must have seen. All around us, people are plagued by a sickness that spares few. You have traveled for far too long to worry about coin."

If it weren't for the weighty burden of his illness, Gideon would have fell to his knees and kissed her boots in thankfulness. "This is a kindness I do not deserve.." 

The skin around the woman's eyes crinkled, as if she were smiling beneath her mask. "The good blood is a gift from the gods, and so it should be a gift to one so courageous as yourself. I will fetch the minister.."

Gideon could feel a torrent of dizziness rack him once again, stealing the words from his lips. The woman disappeared, and for what seemed like a century, he was alone, with only the deafening ring of his ears to accompany him. He didn't register the blood minister rolling up to his bedside until he had stopped, as if he's appeared out of thin air. He couldn't make out his face - everything seemed so hazy now. 

"Ah, Paleblood.. You've come to the right place.." His words seemed to echo as the ringing in Gideon's ears washed over all his senses. ".. Where's an outsider like yourself to begin? Easy, with a bit of Yharnam blood of your own.." 

The matter of a contract arose. Papers shuffled, the minister muttered again, and Gideon was vaguely aware of holding a pen and scrawling it across something, but he couldn't be sure. A cold prickle in his arm, the far-away howl of the wind outside, a red vial and a brief warmth traveling up to his shoulder, and down across his chest.. 

".. Whatever happens, you may think it all a bad dream.." 

And then suddenly, his eyes were clear. The ringing in his head stopped. It was like a veil had been lifted over his mind and body, and the sickness had been washed away.. Only, when he tried to get up, he couldn't. He could only turn his head from left to right. It was as if he was made of stone. The blood minister, the woman in white - they were gone. The room seemed darker, almost, as if the shadows had crept up from the ground and swallowed it up. 

_'.. A bad dream ..'_

He turned his head, and when he looked to his left, blood began to seep out of the floorboards. It pooled at his bedside, rippling and glittering sickeningly in the dim lamplight.. And then something began to crawl out of the pool. A beast - its fur soaked in blood, its teeth caked in gore, its claws reaching, and reaching, and _reaching_ for him. Gideon tried to scream, tried to call out for help, but it was as if his voice had been stolen away. Just as the beasts's claws barely grazed his chest, it exploded in flame, shrieking and snarling in agony. The fire consumed it, burning away its flesh and bones until it was no more than ash, fluttering back down into the sea of blood from whence it came. 

And then Gideon felt a cold grip on his arm. 

Creatures - tiny, pale creatures began to crawl up onto his bed, and onto his arms and legs. He kept trying to scream but again and again his throat constricted and no sound passed his lips. He could only wait in horror as the tiny beings grasped at his clothes and climbed towards his face, and as everything faded into an inky blackness, the last think he saw was their beady eyes and gaping mouths bearing down on him.

* * *

Gideon shot up on his cot, his heart thundering in his chest. His head whipped around wildly for any sign of bloodied monstrosities or pale beings, but he found that he was alone once more, and the room seemed to have brightened. It took a couple of minutes for his heart to slow down, and when the shivers finally subsided, Gideon hunched over, his face sinking into the palms of his hands. 

A bad dream. The minister had warned him. 

His throat was raw - he had been screaming in his sleep. 

Raising his head, he pushed his legs over his bedside and rolled the sleeve of his left arm up to see it had been wrapped in cotton. All of his hazy thoughts slowly began to come together. He'd received a blood transfusion, and his illness had been cured. His stomach churned no longer, his skin was cool, and his head was clearer than it had been since he had first fallen ill. He would have been overjoyed, had his immediate worry not been his sister's well-being. Gideon moved to his feet, bracing himself on the bedside, and slowly made his way across the room, peering right and left for any signs of life. He trudged carefully up a short flight of stairs and came to a doorway, but when he reached for the handle, he found it locked. 

"Please, no visitors. The patients in this room cannot be exposed to infection."

It was the woman in white - Gideon recognized her voice. "I.. I am the traveler. The one that was given a transfusion."

A long pause, and then there were footsteps on the other side of the door. The blinds lifted and the woman's face appeared in the tiny window. "Ah, yes. I didn't properly introduce myself. I am Iosefka, a member of the Healing Church. I run this clinic."

"Is my sister in there?" Gideon craned his neck to look beyond Iosefka's face, but he couldn't make anything out. 

She gazed over to a part of the room Gideon could not see, and then turned back to him, her expression unreadable through the murky glass. "Yes, I have your sister in here, I am treating her as we speak."

"May I see her?" 

"I'm sorry, but I cannot allow anyone into this room."

Gideon felt a cold bolt of fear race up his spine. "I.. Is she..?" _No, please no. Do not let me live and her die._

"She will live, but she is very frail and weak. I cannot risk allowing anyone in and contaminating this room."

Instant relief washed over Gideon like cooling waters upon hearing the words, and his shoulders slackened. She was going to live. He wanted to squeeze her tight and tell her everything was going to be alright from now on, and that their struggles had finally ended. He could almost physically feel the weight of his mother's parting curse lift. The long, arduous journey had not been in vain. "You asked me for no coin, but I wish I could repay your kindness in some way. You have saved us both."

There was another long bout of silence before Iosefka said anything else. "I need not your coin, but.. When you are well enough, there _is_ a favour I would ask of you, if you will have it."

His response was instantaneous. "O-of course! Anything."

"Further into town, just off of the Great Bridge and overlooking the sewers, is a house with two young girls." She motioned a pattern with her index finger as she spoke, as if to map out the location. "They are alone. Their parents have not returned to them for days, my informant tells me, and I worry for them. If you would be so kind, as to pay them a visit and ask them if they fare well, I would be most relieved." 

Gideon's mouth hung open for a couple of seconds as the request stewed in his mind. He had never set foot in Yharnam before this day. He did not know the people, or the way the streets wound about, but.. This woman, Iosefka, had brought him back from the teetering edge of death - and more, his sister as well. No uncomfortable task in the world could ever hope to equate to that which she had given him. "Of course. I owe you my utmost gratitude."

"And you mine."

Gideon motioned to make his way back down the steps, but before he did, Iosefka added, "But please, tread carefully. The night draws near." 

He turned to glance warily back at the woman, but she had disappeared behind the blinds. 

Something about her warning sent a shiver creeping up his back. 

_'.. It ' s y o u r n i g h t m a r e , a f t e r a l l . . '_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the spooky shit begins.


	3. 03: bestias

As he exited the clinic and began his search for the lost girls, Gideon came to realise that plague had touched not just the surrounding countries, but Yharnam as well - only this was a different sort of plague. 

It was a sickness of body _and_ mind, twisting their flesh and driving men to their basest, most feral instincts. They attacked Gideon in the streets, snarling at him of blood, and of the end of the world, and how he’d become a _beast_ and they had a sacred duty to exterminate him. 

And they had succeeded, seemingly.

He could remember bleeding out on the cobblestones, feeling his life spilling out around him and being completely helpless to stop it. He remembered the blinding panic consuming him like a wave, and calling out - for his sister, for the gods, for _anyone_ \- and having only the howl of a madman in the distance answer him. He remembered his fingers going cold, and the sky growing dark, and the flutter of his heart fade until it stopped.

He wasn’t supposed to recall anything, he was just supposed to be _dead_. 

Gideon remembered because he woke up moments later, choking and spluttering desperately for air, and coming face-to-face with a woman with skin as white as snow. 

“Hello, good hunter. I am a doll, here in this dream to look after you.”

He couldn’t find the words to greet her, or say _anything_. He was too numb with shock.

Gideon had died, and yet he hadn’t, she explained. He’d become a _part_ of Yharnam’s fate the day he’d partaken in the holy blood and vowed to save the lost children, and now he was bound to a dream - the dream of the beast hunters, of whom he was now unwillingly associated - and not even death could free him from it. 

“Countless hunters have visited this dream. The graves here stand in their memory. It all seems so long ago now..."

His mind was one with the dream, and the doll was his guide. 

The dream was a quiet, peaceful contrast to the raving bedlam of Yharnam, but staring into the doll’s dead, porcelaine eyes as she offered him a hand to stand up and words of comfort, Gideon could not have felt more disconcerted.

 _Bad dreams,_ he thought, the words of the blood minister ringing in his mind. Had he been talking about Yharnam, or the somber dream of the hunters tying him to it? 

* * *

  
  
He found the lost girls - or, one of them, rather.

Their father had gone out to hunt, the littlest one had told him, to do his blessed duty to the city. When he hadn’t returned the day he’d promised to, their mother had grown so distraught that she’d ventured out to find him. Her elder sister had been away, studying somewhere.

“I’m all alone here, and scared..” 

Gideon’s heart ached, and his thoughts immediately were of Adeline. While the girl spoke, barely visible through the metal bars and the thick, cloudy glass, he could have sworn he _was_ speaking to his sister.. Only, Adeline was safe, and warm, receiving treatment for her ailments. This girl was all alone, and frightened, in the belly of a city full of madmen and looming shadows. 

“I’ll search for your mum,” he promised, touching the window gently, as if to comfort the girl. “And your father, as well.” 

“Really?” The child perked up immediately, stumbling over her words in her excitement. “O-oh, thank you! My m-mum wears a red-jeweled brooch. It’s so big and beautiful, you won’t miss it.” She paused. “Oh, and if you find my mum, give her this.” 

A moment later, the girl pushed the window open a crack further and produced something small, and rectangular - a wooden music box, Gideon realized, taking it from her. 

“It plays one of daddy’s favourite songs. When daddy forgets us, we play it for him, so he remembers.” She giggles slightly, pulling the window in tighter once more. “Mum’s so silly, running off without it.”

_‘When he forgets us.’_

Gideon stepped away from the window and opened the music box. There were delicately inscribed words on the inside of the box, he noticed, as the crank turned and a soft tune played. 

‘Viola and Gascoigne’. 

He closed the box. His stomach felt like a tonne of lead, all of a sudden.

* * *

Gideon tried his best to avoid conflict. He slunk around corners as quietly as he could, avoiding open street-ways and sticking mostly to dark alleys. He’d never been a fighter, scarcely even held a weapon previously.

It was unavoidable, though. He rounded the wrong corner and nearly came nose-to-nose with the griseled, twisted face of what had perhaps once resembled a stately man. 

He’d reacted purely out of instinct, his cleaver flashing out before him in a blind panic, and it had been over in a second. 

The man sank down against the lamp-post he’d been standing next to and crumpled to the ground, gurgling horridly from the ragged hole Gideon had left in his throat. 

It frightened him, how easily violence could come to him, and the only thing to stop the bile rising from his stomach from erupting was the sight of the rusted dagger that had fallen from the man’s hands, surely meant for Gideon’s own neck. 

He motioned to walk away, eager to leave the gruesome scene behind him, but something caught his eye - a faint glint in the man’s belt. He knelt down, trying very hard not to look at the man’s upper half, and the gore seeping out of him.

A darkly-coloured glass vial was fastened to the man’s belt - a vial of blood, he realized. 

Surely.. A dead man didn’t need this anymore, did he? 

The thought only made Gideon’s stomach churn even more. Two days in this city, and he was justifying looting a dead man - a dead man driven mad by plague, but a _man_ still. He couldn’t have ever dreamed of the thought crossing his mind before. Nevertheless, he reached down and pulled it gently from the man’s person, clamping his jaw against the nausea. 

Necessary evils, he supposed. 

_For the little girl. For my survival._

* * *

  
  


Gideon had made sure to keep his hands clean after his encounter with the man, fleeing or hiding when he was spotted, praying that he would never have to defend himself through violence again. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see a torn throat, and a stream of blood.

He’d seen no sign of the little girl’s mother - or anyone decent, really. The only citizens he’d encountered that hadn’t lunged at him whilst spitting curses had been locked tightly inside of their homes - shut-ins determined to wait the night out. 

He also hadn’t run into any of the ‘beast hunters’. Everyone spoke of the fabled champions of the night - the madmen, the women shacked up inside their houses, the doll - but he’d yet to meet any of them. Weren’t they supposed to be clearing out the feral creatures and the infected?

_I am no hunter.._

Surely he could not be the only one out on the streets. He wasn’t doing much to cleanse the city of the plague, he had merely made a promise to a young girl to seek out her parents - nothing more. He’d sworn no oaths to any churches, he was not a seasoned warrior.. He was a scholar, a student. The serrated cleaver he gripped in his right hand was a cruel, crude tool, and felt _wrong_ for him to hold. It was so far removed from the soft feathers on his writing quills, and the pages of his books back home.

Gideon did not belong in Yharnam. He felt as though he had lost the choice to leave the day he’d visited the clinic with his sister. 

The thought made his gut wrench. 

Having become so consumed in thought, Gideon’s boot caught on something protruding from the ground, and he barely managed to steady himself before keeling over. 

_A gravestone._

He’d walked right into a graveyard. He cursed for letting himself become so distracted when there seemed to be the whisper of a threat around every bend. 

_‘Chunk’_

_‘Chunk’_

Gideon froze. 

It was hard to make out in the poor lighting, but it was then that he noticed a figure on the other end of the graveyard.

_‘Chunk’_

Something solid met something tender, and there was an awful squelching. Very, very carefully, Gideon stepped closer, trying to steady his breaths. It was a man, he realized, turned away and hunching over something Gideon couldn’t see. He brandished an axe in one hand, and raised it up over his head to swing once more. 

_‘Chunk’_

Gideon’s veins ran cold.

The sickening realization that it was, in fact, a _body_ on the ground, and the man had been _hacking_ at it steadily came all too late. Slowly, the figure rose up from his gruesome task, his axe resting at his side, gleaming with gore in the faint light of the fading sun. 

His voice was low, his breath laboured from his work. He’d not even looked, but he seemed to know someone had intruded. Gideon hadn’t made a _sound_ , but still, the man spoke. 

“Beasts all over the shop..” 

He began to turn, straightening himself out. His eyes were covered, sullied bandages strapped across his face like a mask. His cloak was plastered with the blood of the men he had butchered. 

“You’ll be one of them, sooner or later.”

The man exhaled, long, and slow, his jaws hanging open to reveal teeth too long and protruding for his mouth. 

Gideon could feel his heartbeat in his throat, his ears, his stomach. 

“I am no beast.” He could barely choke the words out. 

The man started towards him, his pace quickening as he neared where Gideon stood.

“I am no beast,” he echoed desperately, beginning to step away. His pleas fell on deaf ears. 

The stranger threw his axe over his head and hurled himself at Gideon, roaring animalistically. Gideon stumbled back and fell against one the the tombstones so quickly that he knocked the air out of his lungs, but before the axe connected with his head he dove off to the side and rolled away. 

The axe sailed right over Gideon’s head, just nearly grazing the fabric of his hat. Struggling for air, Gideon clawed his way back to his feet just in time to unclip his saw cleaver from his belt and block the next swing. Metal glanced off of metal and a flurry of sparks burst forth. 

Gideon swung blindly in retaliation, slicing through naught but air. The man growled wildly and threw his axe upwards in an arc. Gideon tried to block the attack once more, but the axe was far sturdier than his cleaver. The cleaver flew right out of his hands and the axe caught Gideon’s upper thigh, slicing his flesh down to the very bone. A scream ripped from Gideon’s throat and he toppled backwards. 

He was going to _die_. 

He.. He was.. Wait. He had the blood. The healing blood. 

Clutching his leg with one hand, his other flew down to grapple at the vial he’d plucked from the dead man. He struggled to unscrew the cap, his gloves slicked with his own blood, his hands trembling with desperation. 

His attacker stopped, suddenly, the moment the lid on the vial popped off. 

“Ahh.. What’s that smell?” 

Gideon froze for a second, but only a second, as the man began to speak. 

“The sweet blood..” He stood in place, entranced, almost. Was it Gideon’s blood, or.. The vial of blood he meant? There was a deep, feral hunger in his voice as he droned on. “.. Oh, it sings to me..” 

He would hesitate no longer. Jamming the syringe into his thigh, Gideon could barely even savour the instant relief the blood gave as he immediately hoisted himself back to his feet and staggered over to where his cleaver had landed, his entire body wracked with tremors. 

“.. It’s enough to make a man _sick_.” A thick, wheezing laughter erupted from the man, and he whirled around to face Gideon once more, wielding his weapon with both hands. 

The healing properties of the blood here beyond miraculous. By the time the man bore his axe down upon Gideon, he was steady enough to withstand the blow. He dug his heel into the ground and deflected the next, unsettling his opponent’s footing enough to break his stance. This was it, his chance. 

Gideon’s hand flew down to his gun holster, and he fired. 

The bullet lodged itself directly into the man’s midsection, the shot echoing throughout the graveyard. 

The man collapsed to his knees and cried out, his voice ringing with rage and pain. His axe clattered down to the ground next to him. 

For a moment they were still, their ragged breaths and the howl of the wind above the only sounds to be heard. Gideon’s mind raced, his shoulders quivering with adrenaline, as he watched the man cup his hand around the bleeding pit the bullet had left in his stomach. 

And then a rumbling growl arose from his throat. He began to claw feverishly at his chest, and at his shoulders, his head bowed as some agony began to rack his body. He spluttered and screamed, arching his spine as his muscles bulged, and his clothes began to burst and tear at the seams. His voice dropped to a low, gutteral snarl, and when he raised his head, it was no longer the face of a man. 

It was the contorted face a starving beast. 

* * *

  
  


Dead. 

The beast was dead. 

Something had happened when the music box had fallen out of Gideon’s satchel as he fled from the creature. It’d tumbled out onto the ground behind him and opened up, and as soon as the soft tune had becan to play, the beast had recoiled, clutching its head and moaning, as if in some form of physical pain. 

Gideon hadn’t stopped to wonder why at the time - he’d swung madly at the beast with his saw cleaver until there was so much blood in his eyes that he could not see, and the beast had fallen before him into a lifeless heap. 

As he lay against a collapsed tombstone, rubbing his eyes and pressing down on the fresh clawmarks the beast had left in his calf, he listened as the music box eventually began to slow, and then stopped. A heavy silence enveloped the graveyard. 

_‘.. when daddy forgets us, we play it for him..’_

_No._ He pushed the thought away immediately, gripping the headstone he lay against and hoisting himself back up. Hadn’t she said their father was a hunter? The sort that _killed_ beasts, not... 

Gideon began to hobble up an incline that led and out of the graveyard, eager to leave the horrible ordeal behind him and find a place to lie down and tend to his wounds. He’d spilled the rest of his blood vial, so there was no chance he could rely on that to heal him this time. 

Just as he neared the arch leading out of the graveyard, he noticed a body lying a little ways away, almost totally shrouded by the shadow of a gnarled old tree. Gideon nearly passed it by, content _not_ to look at _any_ more bodies, but then he noticed something as he reached the edge of the walkway out. 

It was a woman. Her face had been horribly mangled and disfigured, and a halo of blood had dried around her head and shoulders. 

There was a large, red brooch pinned to her shirt. 

_Viola and Gascoigne._

Gideon fell to his knees, unable to keep the horror swelling inside him at bay any longer, and began to sob.


	4. 04 :  timentibus eum

He’d lied to the little girl. 

He’d _lied_. 

Gideon had intended to tell her. He’d vowed to find her parents, and she’d had the right to know what had become of them - grave news or not. 

But when he’d seen her little face pressed up against the glass, a hopeful glimmer in her eye, he’d not had the stomach for it. 

How was one supposed to tell a child that her father had slaughtered her mother, and the man who’d been sent out to find them had in turn killed her father? He’d pictured somebody telling Adeline that he had died. How would she cope with that? How _could_ she?

And so he’d told the girl that he’d never found them. Guilt twisted his heart so terribly that he swore he could feel it contort in his chest, and the brooch, tucked into his pocket, seemed only to weigh more and more with each falsity that passed his lips. He didn’t know if he’d really done her a service by lying or not, but he just… He _couldn’t_ say it. 

Viola and Gascoigne, slain and rotting in a pit somewhere in the darkest recess of the city. 

* * *

When he returned, the doll introduced Gideon to the keeper of the Dream. He was naught but a shriveled old man in a wheelchair - Gehrman, he was called - hands folded over a weathered cane. Gideon wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but not.. This. The doll had spoken so highly of him. 

“Ahh.” He glanced up before Gideon even stepped into the room, clearly having expected his presence. “You must be the new hunter.” 

Gideon’s throat was raw, his voice cracked when he spoke. “Is that what I am?” 

The man sat silently for a long, still moment, the creases on his face seeming to grow a little deeper as he regarded Gideon. What was that swimming in his gaze? Was it distaste? Sadness? He couldn’t tell. 

“Well, you’re here, aren’t you? And you’ve been killing beasts.” 

Gideon wanted to tell him that he hadn’t chosen this. He wanted to say that he had no business killing beasts, that he’d only come to Yharnam to find medicine for his sister, and that he didn’t want any more blood on his hands. 

Instead, he mumbled, “I lied to a young girl today. I couldn’t tell her I..” He swallowed a lump in his throat, his fingers brushing the scarlet brooch tucked away in his coat. “.. That I found her parents dead.” 

Again, the elderly man was quiet for a long time. Something about his expression told Gideon that he knew exactly what had happened - that this sort of thing was commonplace. 

How many children's parents had left for the hunt and never come back?

How many had turned into _beasts_?

“That,” Gehrman said finally, setting his cane aside to push his wheelchair a little bit closer, “is _why_ a hunter hunts. They do it so the night can end, and the beasts with it - so these sorts of things don’t have to happen.”

Gideon parted his lips to speak but found he had nothing to say. Part of him _loathed_ the thought of having to venture back into the city and continue walking down the bloody path he had been following. He knew he would be happier going back to the clinic and visiting his sister, playing dolls with her and forgetting this poisonous dream altogether.. 

.. But another part of him, a weaker, but more noisome desire nagging at his mind was telling him that he had to push on. He _had_ to keep finding lost souls throughout Yharnam and doing what little he could to spare them from a terrible fate. 

Maybe it was his childhood penchant for noble poetry, of valiant knights slaying demons and staving off darkness, manifesting as some sort of foolish sense of justice. 

Gideon was no valiant knight, however - he was as far from such a title as anyone could be. He was a weak man with feeble dreams, better suited to study literature than to carry weapons. 

He looked to Gehrman for solace, but he saw only pity and sorrow. 

* * *

Gideon parted from the Dream with a satchel full of vials and instruction to venture beyond the streets of Yharnam into the Cathedral Ward - an abbey in which the grand house of worship that the Healing Church presided over stood. It was the place all who wished to serve as hunters went to be christened officially, and the most sacred grounds within the city.

Gehrman had spoken to Gideon of the Healing Church, a religious order of which he’d only heard vague tales as a child. They were the people in charge of administering the holy blood to the people of Yharnam, as well as arming and employing the hunters to cleanse the world of the beastly scourge. 

He had set out in search of wayward hunters or patrons of the Church, but now that Gideon had arrived, the same feeling of dread permeated the air here as it had in central Yharnam. 

The sun was fading into the horizon, and the shadows around him only grew darker, and longer. It seemed like something was staring back at him from every spot of inky black. 

What had once, perhaps, been a sacred place of worship had been defiled. Priests, hunters, and beasts lay strewn about all along the ascent up to the great cathedral at the top of the abbey, and the air was thick with the stench of rotting flesh and flame. Not even the Church had been able to withstand the encroaching plague.

Even the halls of the holy cathedral itself, a delicate priestess writhed and screamed and mutated into a horrid, gangly mass of teeth and claws, her vows to heal and protect forgotten.

She very nearly killed him. As Gideon stood over her corpse after a long and vicious fight, trembling violently and slicked with a mixture of her and his own blood, he felt no sense of victory or relief - only a cold commiseration. There was a golden pendant still clasped in one of her hands, a symbol of her humanity. 

Had there been anything sensible left in her brain? Had he killed a mindless beast, or just a frightened, cornered animal? 

Maybe it wasn’t worth questioning anymore. Regardless, she would have slain him if he hadn’t reacted, and that was all that really mattered. 

Gideon peered up at the altar that the vicar had been kneeling before. There, a great, hulking skull lay amidst a sea of candles, spattered with the blood of the battle. Though exhaustion pulled at him as his wounds throbbed, something drew Gideon towards it. He couldn’t help but stretch his arm out to it, succumbing to its morbid allure.. 

.. And just as his fingers brushed the skull, his consciousness was whisked away.

_He - or, his mind, formless and merely an observer - was in a dimly-lit room. Everything was hazy and indistinct, and had a very dreamlike quality to it - this was a vision, of sorts. Parchment lay strewn across the floor and the desks, and a little ways away, his back turned, sat a man in a rocking chair. He undulated back and forth rhythmically in his seat, clasping a decorated staff in his hands, as footsteps approached from behind._

_The newcomer spoke. His face was veiled by the surrounding darkness. “Master Willem, I’ve come to bid you farewell.”_

_The man in the rocking chair - Willem - did not respond immediately. He thumbed his staff thoughtfully and then responded, “Oh I know, I know..” His tone turned icy with disdain. “You think now to betray me.”_

_He was met with an equally disdained, “No, but you will never listen.” The faceless man took a step closer to Willem, the hostility draining from his voice. “I tell you, I will not forget our adage.”_

_There was a long, drawn out silence, and the creak of the rocking chair ceased, and Willem sat still. “...We are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood.”_

_Something about the words sent a chill running up Gideon's spine._

_“Our eyes are yet to open..”_

_In unison, as through they had recited the phrase many times, “Fear the old blood.”_

_The man standing stepped back. “I must take my leave.” He turned, and without another word, his form was swallowed up by the shadows, and he was gone._

_There was another lengthy bout of silence. When Willem spoke again, his voice was heavy with dread._

_“By the gods, fear it, Laurence.”_

And just like that, Gideon’s mind was ripped from the vision, and he was staring up at the skull once more, his heart thundering in his chest. 

_By the gods, fear it.._

The voice of Willem echoed in his head, and he recoiled from the skull.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bloodborne might be coming to PC and i'm about to mcfreakin' LOSE IT y'all
> 
> \ [T] /


	5. 05: venatorum venandi

  
  


The night had worn on, and the moon hung over the city like a great pale eye. 

As Gideon continued to venture through the Cathedral Ward, whispers of the vision in the Grand Cathedral still swimming in his head, a growing pit of worry that he would never again see another sane person began to grow in his stomach. No one he had come upon in Yharnam since he’d parted from his sister hadn’t been touched by the beastly scourge.. Or dead, for that matter. 

When he _did_ finally see a human figure, barely traced by the moonlight in the surrounding gloom, it felt almost unreal. The beginnings of a cautious greeting formed in Gideon’s throat, but then the man turned, and there was a wickedness to his eyes that Gideon had seen all to many times now. 

“ _You_ ,” the man spat, cocking his gun. “You plague-ridden rat. You killed him. You killed Gascoigne.” 

There was no time to rebut, there was to time to think about _anything_ but that he had to move, he had to fight. The hunter fired off a shot and Gideon leapt out of the way, his cleaver in his hands and readied before he could so much as breathe. 

“You killed my _friend_ ,” the man snarled, unclipping his own cleaver from his belt, his voice thick with hate. 

Their weapons sang a horrible, piercing song as they clashed. The man was strong - stronger than he ought to have been for such a lithe, seemingly normal person. His body was human, but then again, the unmistakable thirst for blood shone in his gaze as they fought. 

Gideon was no match for him. 

It was clear from the first few seconds of their battle that he would lose this fight. He could feel his arms weakening very quickly as he struggled to defend himself from the other hunter’s wild swings - going on the offensive would be impossible. 

So great was his focus to evade death that he scarcely noticed another figure melt out of the shadows. Suddenly, the hunter broke away from Gideon and whirled around to face them, and a heartbeat later, they locked blades. 

It was dizzying to watch the ensuing fray. The shadowy figure was just that - a shadow, for they moved with such grace and speed that they were naught but a wisp of darkness. 

There was a moment where the newcomer faltered back, and the hunter had an opening, but before he could strike, Gideon snapped out of his stupor and lunged forward. He sliced upwards caught the man right in the throat, beads of scarlet spattering Gideon’s face. 

The hunter spluttered, clawing at his chest as blood began to spill down his torso, and then he collapsed to the stones below. He writhed and choked on the blood pouring from his maw, and then mere seconds later, he stilled. 

Dead.

Gideon stumbled backwards until his back hit a wall, blood roaring in his ears. For a heartbeat he did not trust the new figure, feared that they would turn on him just as the dead hunter had, but they made no move towards him. 

They were cloaked in a feathery black garb that draped over their shoulders like wings, and a long, pale beak - a mask, of sorts - protruded from their face. They looked like a crow, was what Gideon’s immediate thought was. He said nothing, his mouth hanging slightly ajar as his mind brimmed with adrenaline and confusion alike. 

The figure flourished their blades, ridding them of the worst of the gore they had collected, and slipped them into their belt. Their head tilted in Gideon’s direction. 

“That.. Wasn’t necessary of you..” They - _she_ , Gideon realized - spoke between laboured breaths. “.. But you have my thanks.” 

Hearing a human voice - a real, human voice, unmarred with the wildness of beasthood - was like cooling waters soothing a burn. Gideon pushed himself away from the wall he’d fallen against. He gazed down at the hunter he’d just killed, his accusatory words burning in his mind like hot coals. 

“He was angry, he.. I..” 

“He wasn’t himself anymore,” the woman cut in, crossing her arms over her chest. “You must’ve been the one to kill Gascoigne too, then.” 

Gideon frowned, drawing his eyes up to her.

“I..” He struggled to find his words. “.. You knew? How?” 

The woman sighed heavily. “He was falling apart.. I’m sure it had to be done.” She seemed almost to be talking to herself then, her voice quiet and laden with regret. She turned her head to Gideon, addressing him more directly. “It’s my job.. Hunters lose themselves and become the very thing they seek to destroy. Someone’s got to put them out of their misery before they go too far.” 

Realization quelled his restless thoughts. “They were on you list.. This man and Gascoigne.” 

“Regrettably.” 

He had half a mind to tell her what had happened, explain that he’d found Gascoigne’s lover murdered by his own hands, and that Gideon had been too much of a coward to pass the news on, but he didn’t. He pushed the thought away numbly, like he did many other recent unsavoury memories. He'd made his bed, and now he had to sit in it. There was no point in dwelling upon it any longer. 

The woman stepped towards him and reached out, her hand gently brushing Gideon’s shoulder. “Try to keep your hands clean. The hunter should hunt _beasts_. Leave the hunting of hunters to me.” 

He wondered if there was anyone left roaming the streets of Yharnam that was not a hunter, or the beasts they sought to kill. He did not ask, for he feared he knew the answer to the question already.

 _A hunter should hunt beasts._. He peered down at the lifeless body of the man he’d slain, unable to tear his eyes away from just how _human_ he still looked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this encounter isn't the first time you actually meet eileen the crow in the game, and obviously i've been modifying in-game dialogue too, but it's all for the sake of simplification. anyway, brief moment of normal human interaction before everything goes batshit nuts from here on out. 
> 
> THREE CHEERS FOR INSANITY AND COSMIC HORROR! \ ['o'] /


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